Hook’s Humble Homepage

Hello, hello! I’m going to Akademy 2013 in Bilbao, Spain …

… where I will hold one of the lightning talks; namely “Learn more about the FLA — What is FLA good for and why you shoud sign it“:

The Fiduciary License Agreement is a type of a very well balanced copyright assignement that enables KDE e.V. to manage your contribution and if needed protect you in court, while making sure that you get all the freedom you need both for your code and yourself.

After the talk, there will be time to answer any questions you may have about the FLA.

After I finish my talk, I’ll hang around for any and all questions regarding Free Software licensing and other related legal questions … and if all fails, I’ll just practice my debugging-fu and throw hard to find, yet certainly there, bugs in every direction ☺

hook out → extremely looking forward to finally meeting all the nice KDE people in preson

I’ve decided to re-take the course “Gentle Introduction to Python”¹ on MOOC-E, which is starting on the 17^th of June.

But this is not about letting people know of my personal plans: If you’re from Slovenia, or better yet from Ljubljana, I’d like to let you know that I’m thinking of holding (ir)regular meetups with any local participants and the wonderful Python guys and gals from Kiberpipa.

Now, if you haven’t heard about MOOC-E or the Mechanical MOOC yet, a quick glace at their website says it all:

Mechanical MOOC is two things: A massive open online course (MOOC), and an experiment in how to offer these courses.

First, the course: We’re offering an eight-week course called A Gentle Introduction to Python. It is, as it sounds, a course in learning the basics of Python programming.

Second, the approach: Rather than trying to create a platform that structures the end-to-end learning experience, as recent MOOCs have done, we’re taking the best of existing open learning site — content from MIT OpenCourseWare, communities from OpenStudy, exercises by Codecademy — and joining them loosely with a mailing list that will coordinate student activity.

Instead of a professor or university organizing the class, our e-mail scheduler will do it — that’s why it’s mechanical.

As already said, I already experienced this system and can warmly recomend it — at least for me the balance between the freedom not to be bound to a strict deadline and a certain amount of peer pressure, is a exactly the right way to study at the moment.

hook out → sipping Korean Osulloc oolong tea with cocoa splinters and caramel (plus a bit of sugar and a dash of milk)

1. I dropped out in week 5 or so out of 8 due to other obligations. ↩

This is just a simple test whether Habari¹ can push posts to Friendica².

If all goes well, this blog post should pop up in my Friendica profile and the μblog sidepanel should start showing posts from there instead of identi.ca (which BTW is switching from StatusNet to pump.io — nothing bad with that though).

My reason for trying Friendica is that it is considered stable and it can connect to all the other interesting so called social networks.

hook out ⇒ and in desperate need of some tea…

1. The PHP and SQL(ite) based blogging system I use nowadays ↩
2. A distributed and very federation friendly Free Software social network system, based on PHP and MySQL ↩

So, I’ve been shaving with shaving oil and safety razors¹ for a while now and decided that it’s time I help my fellow geeks by spreading some knowledge about this method (which is saddly still poorly documented online). Much of the below method is hacks assembled together from different sources and lots of trial and error.

Why shave with oil and DE safety razors

First of all, shaving with oldskool DE razors is not as much about being hip and trendy² as it is about optimising. Although, I have to admit, it is still looks pretty cool ☺

There are several reasons why shaving with oil and DE razors beats modern foam and system multiblade razors hands down:

• they’ve got multiple uses — shaving oil replaces both the shaving foam/soap and aftershave (and pre-shaving balm); DE razors are used in tools and well, they’re proper blades for crying out loud!;
• the whole set takes a lot less space when traveling — one razor, a puny pack of blades and a few ten ml of oil is all you need to carry around³);
• you get a better shave — once you start shaving properly, you get less burns and cutticles and a smoother shave as well;
• it’s more ecological — the DE blades have less different materials and are easier to recycle, all shaving oils I found so far are Eco certified;
• and last, but not least in these days, it’s waaaaaaay cheaper — (more on that in a future blog post).

History and experience (skip if you’re not interested in such bla bla)

I got my first shaving oil⁴ about two years ago, when I started to travel more. My wonderful girlfriend bought it for me, because a 30 ml flask took a lot less space then a tin of shaving foam and a flask aftershave. The logic behind this decision was: “well, all the ancient people managed to have clean shaves with oil, my beard can’t be that much different then in the past”

And, boy, was I in for a nice surprise!

I used to get inflamations, pimples and in-grown hair quite often, so I never shaved very close — but when shaving with oil, there was none of that! After one or two months of of trial and error with different methods and own ideas, I finally figured out how to properly use it and left the shaving soaps, gels and foams for good.

As I shaved for a while with oil I noticed that all “regular modern” system multiblade razors have strips of an aloe vera gel, that works well with shaving foam, gels and soap; but occasionally stick to your face if you’re using shaving oil. This is true for as many or as little blades in the razor heads as possible. — I just couldn’t find razors without it.

That’s why I started thinking about the classic DE safety razors and eventually got a plastic Wilkinson Sword Classic for a bit over 5 €. Surprisingly, after just a few miniscule cuts, the improvement over the system multiblade razors got quite apparent. I haven’t touched my old Gillette Mach3 ever since. The Wilkinson Sword Classic is by far not a very good DE razor, but it’s cheap and easy to use for beginners. But if you decide you like this kind of shave, I would warmly recommend that you upgrade to a better one.

For example recently I got myself a nice Edwin Jagger razor with their DE8 head and I love it. It’s full-metal, chromed, closed-comb razor, which means it has another bar below the blade, so it’s easier and safer to use then an more agressive open-comb version.

How to Shave with oil and DE razors

OK, first of all, don’t panic! — they’re called “safety razors” for a reason. As opposed to the straight razors, the blade is enclosed, so even if you manage to cut yourself, you can’t get a deep cut. This is truer still for closed-comb razors.

1. Wash your face to remove dead skin and fat. It’s the best if you shave just after taking a shower.
2. Get moisture into the hairs. Beard hair is hard as copper wire while it is dry; but wet, it’s quite soft. The best way is to apply a towel soaked in very hot water for a few (times per) ten seconds to your face — the hot water also opens up the pores. If you are traveling and don’t have hot water, just make sure those hairs are wet. As it’s a good idea to have your razor up to temperature as well, I usually put hot water in the basin and leave the razor in it while I towel my face.
3. Put a few drops of shaving oil into the palm of your hand (5-6 is enough for me) and with two fingers apply it to all the places on your face that you want to shave.
4. Splash some more (hot) water on your face — the fact that water and oil don’t mix well is the reason why your blade glides so fine. Also during the shave, whenever feel your razor doesn’t glide that well anymore, usually just applying some water is enough to fix it.
5. First shave in the direction of the grain — to get a feeling for the right angle, take the handle of the razor in your fingers and lean the flat of the head onto your cheek, so the handle is 90° to your cheek; then reduce the angle until you get to a position where shaving feels comfortable. Also it’s easier to shave moving your whole arm then just the wrist. Important: DO NOT apply pressure — the safety razors expose enough blade that with a well ballanced razor just the weight of the head produces almost enough pressure for a good shave (as opposed to sytem multiblade razors). Pull in the direction of the handle with slow strokes — on thicker beard you will need to make shorter strokes then on less thick beard. To get a better shave, make sure to stretch your skin where you currently shave. If the razor gets stuck with hair and oil, just swish it around in the water to clean it.
6. Splash your face with (hot) water again and now shave accross the grain. This gives you a closer shave⁵
7. Splash your face with cold water to get rid of any hair remains and to close the pores. Get a drop or two of shaving oil and a few drops of water into your palm and mix it with two fingers. Rub the oil-water mixture into your face instead of using after-shave and leave your face to dry — the essential oils in the shaving oil enriches and dezinfects your skin.
8. Clean your razor under running water to remove hair and oil and towel-dry it (don’t rub the blade!). When I take it apart to change blades, I clean the razor with water and rub it with the towel, to keep it shiney.

Enjoy shaving ☺

It is a tiny bit more work then shaving with system multiblade razors, but it’s well worth it! For me the combination of quality DE safety razors and shaving oil, turned shaving from a bothersome chore into a morning ritual I look forward to.

…and in time, I’m sure you’ll find (and share) your own method as well.

Update: I just stumbled upon this great blog post “How Intellectual Property Destroyed Men’s Shaving” and thought it be great to mention here.

hook out → see you well shaven at Akademy ;)

1. Double edged razors as our grandads used to shave with. ↩
2. Are oldskool razors hip and trendy right now anyway? I haven’t noticed them to be so. ↩
3. I got a myself a nice leather Edwin Jagger etui for carrying the razor and two packs of blades that measures 105 x 53 x 44 mm (for comparison: the ugly Gillette Mach3 plastic holder measures 148 x 57 x 28 mm and does’t hold much protection when travelling ↩
4. L’Occitane Cade (wild juniper) shaving oil, and I still happy with that one. ↩
5. Some claim that for a really close shave you need to shave against the grain as well, but I found that to be too aggressive for my beard. Also I heard this claim only from people shaving with soap. ↩

The day of love is going to an end and before expressing my gratitude to some Free Software that makes my day, I’ll try to explain why there are so many people expressing such powerful emotion towards it.

In the modern society where software governs many aspects of our lives — from handilng basically all our communication to making our travels safe. We let software entertain us and we use it to vote on important decisions. We meet through it, we work through it and yet don’t realise it’s there. In such a world Free Software and Open Standards are the ones ensuring us basic human rights that we take in the real world for granted.

So, if you don’t scream it out loud from the rooftops, at the very least take a moment to look around you and notice all the Free Software that you use in daily life and appreciate it ☺

Personally, I love that with FS, even as a non-coder/lawyer I can do something cool with the software I use and I’m able to contribute back to all the wonderful projects out there. Learning how to code, learning how the internet work, see borderless communities share their work and ideas… I can’t imagine this anywhere else and it’s exteremly inspiring!

So here is my (not by far complete) list of less known projects that appriciate make my life better:

• FCron — is a very powerful Cron deamon that makes sure that whatever processes and scripts I want to have done on a regular basis, get done, even if my laptop is not powered on 24/7 (safe assumption for any non-server TBH);
• TaimeTraquer — Karsten already expressed his love towards GTimeLog …well, this is an even less known KDE KRunner for it, and I adore it for not being in my way when I don’t need it;
• Zanshin — a KDE/Akonadi-based ToDo manager based on the GTD principle …it keeps me organised and therefore preserves my sanity;
• Seeks — a P2P social web search (meta)engine, which IMHO is the future of web searching. It’s quite different to use then Google, so you do want to read the short manual first, but boy is it worth it! I’ve been using it as my primary search engine for months now and when I find time I’ll run my own node as well.

It’s not too late, go to the IRC channels and forums of FS you use and let the hard-working people, who code to empower you, know that you appreciate their hard work!

hook out → share the love!

P.S. And while we’re on the topic of human rights — please sign this petition to keep water a public commodity in Europe.